DENDROCYCXA JAVANICA. 105 



Oatos, in 'Birds ot' British Biiiniali,' says that he has "frequently 

 found its nest in Pega in July and Anou>;t — a mass of dead leaves and 

 grass placed on a low thick cane-brake in paddy-land, and containino- six 

 very smooth white eogs. . . . Those nests I myself found were invariably 

 situated, as above described, on cane-ln-akes."'' 



Jerdon also says that "It generally, perhaps, breeds in the drier 

 patches of grass on the ground, often at a considerable distance from water, 

 carefully concealing its nest l)y intertwining some blades of grass over it." 



Lastly, Legge notes in ' Birds of Ceylon ' : — " It sometimes builds on the 

 ground among the rushes or tussocks, and even in reeds, the nest half 

 floatino- in water." 



In ' Game-Birds,' Hume's notes on the niditication of this species are 

 very full and interesting, containing practically every known situation for 

 the nest. Thus Capt. Butler took the nest from a tussock of grass growing- 

 out of a dried stick fence ; Mr. Doig and he took them frequently from 

 creeper-covered tamarisk-jungle growing in water, and the former also 

 found them placed on the tops of clumps of bulrushes. 



Mr. J. Davidson also found the nests on the ground in Mysore, where 

 they were placed in tufts of grass wdiich formed islands in the middle of 

 weedy tanks. 



Cripps found that in Dacca, Furreedpur, and Sylhet they l)reed both 

 on trees and on the ground. 



In the Dibrugarh District of Assam I found that the Whistling-Teal 

 almost invariably placed their nests on high })ieces of land standing in 

 swamps. In the north of the district I noticed that the Whistling-Teals 

 were locally migratory. In June, in certain places, not a single bird was 

 to be seen, perha})S, in a long morning's walk ; but in July, by the time the 

 water had collected in the low-lying land, forming wide though shallow 

 stretches of water, the birds had gathered in hundreds, and were busy over 

 their domestic arrangements. Often across these pieces of water the 

 villagers had made raised banks from one side to the other, either to cut 

 off their special patch of cultivation or as a path. The centre of these 

 lianks were, as a rule, trodden l)are, l)ut the sides were, more or loss, 

 covered with dense grass, some two or three feet highj and in such places 

 the Whistlers placed their nests. 



They also made use of the high ground suri'ounding the deejx'r ]>ieces 

 of water^ which formed small banks in the cold weather, but in the rains 

 forined tiny circular islands. The nests here were massive structures of 

 grass and water-weeds, and were always very well conciealed, the covering 



